


In the Middle

by NumptyPylon



Series: Rayllum 90s grade school [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Awkward Romance, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Middle School AU, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NumptyPylon/pseuds/NumptyPylon
Summary: Middle school is the peak of awkwardness and also the natural habitat of Callum's hair floof, and thus this AU was born.———Chapter 1: The kids are called to the Principal Opeli’s office for crimes ranging from bringing a pet to school to unsanctioned parkour to electrocuting other students.Chapter 2: Callum and Rayla get invited to a birthday party and play a game of Truth or Dare that goes about as well as you'd expect.Chapter 3: Christmas special, wherein two dummies try to make presents for each other. Featuring Callum's attempts at poetry and Rayla's attempts at pottery.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Rayllum 90s grade school [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123886
Comments: 148
Kudos: 126





	1. First Day of School

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Figured we could all use some fluff these days, and it's not like middle school is in any way hell on earth, right?
> 
> This first chapter was posted before, for the AU prompt of Rayllum birthday bash, but I recently wrote more in the same AU, so I'm just posting it again as its own story so they're all together, since the next chapters will be a direct continuation of the first. I'll have the next chapter up before too long, which will be fully new stuff.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
>   
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids are called to the principal's office for crimes ranging from bringing a pet to school to unsanctioned parkour to electrocuting other students.

September 2nd, 1998  
Katolis Public School, Vancouver BC

Opeli took in the unusual group of troublemakers currently seated across from her desk.

Callum Prince, decent grades, but underachiever in comparison to his actual potential. Tended to get distracted, notations only for drawing during class. Anxious and a bully-magnet. Opeli knew him quite well, he had been up here pretty frequently, or at least he used to, getting upset during class presentations or being pushed around by older boys. He was a good kid, certainly he had never been here for anything like _this._

Ezran Prince, Callum’s younger brother, his record empty since it was his first day here. His preschool file was exemplary, barring a tendency to wander off while on field trips.

Rayla Ghealach. _Her_ file was… interesting. Conscientious and hard working. Also mouthed off to teachers and tended to descend buildings via drainpipes rather than stairs. Adopted, or rather… since that was not legal, her guardians being both men, under temporary guardianship that was apparently not so temporary. Biological parents on assignment in the middle east. No wonder she acted out. Recently, a lot of citations for reenacting scenes from various action movies on school property, which there was no specific rule against, but Opeli might have to instate one. She usually had the sense to keep the stunts _ground level_ but today was… a day.

First things first though. The younger child. The lesser offense. Certainly the simplest to deal with, because his dad was sensible and she would let _him_ deal with it.

“Ezran.” Opeli turned to the small boy, half-huddled into his brother’s side. “Please return to class. It is your first day of school, it is important for you to meet your new classmates.”

“ _I’m_ not being punished? I _knew_ I wasn’t supposed to bring Zym.” The boy looked stubbornly up at her. “It was in the letter you sent. My dad read it to me. I knew and I did it anyway.” Honesty. Conscience. Ever more reason to not punish a 6-year-old for a somewhat minor infraction of the school rules.

“You brought your pet to school. That is a minor offense, which I will ignore, as it is your first. _Minor_ , however, does not describe what your brother and friend got up to, so they will stay here, for a longer chat.” Opeli said, giving both of them a firm gaze.

The two older children both returned remarkably unrepentant stares. She had expected that from Rayla, but Callum? That boy apologized for things he had not done or had anything to do with.

“I would like to hear the story from you two. But first, are either of you hurt? Do you need to go to the nurse’s office before we have a talk? We _will_ still have a talk, mind, provided neither of you are diagnosed as dying.” She looked at them, gauging, as both children shook their heads.

Callum took a deep breath. He tended to be anxious, but he didn’t look it today. “Kasef noticed that Ezran brought Zym to school, when he wasn’t supposed to, and then he took Zym from him, and said he couldn’t tell the teacher because Zym wasn’t supposed to _be_ at school and he would be expelled if he was discovered. And Ez was crying, and then they put Zym in a bucket from the sandpit and hoisted him up the flagpole. And then I tried to get him down and they pushed me and cut the flag line. And then Rayla climbed up the flagpole to get Zym, because the line had snagged, so it was just whipping around the pole in the wind? So she _had_ to go up there, Zym would have _died!_ But then some of the other kids started cheering for her, and Kasef didn’t like that at _all,_ so him and his friends started… s-shaking the pole,” There was more of the anxiousness she had expected, and she sympathized, she did. It must have been very scary to see. There was just no excusing _these_ actions. “But I used my physics project to stop them so Rayla could escape. That’s it, basically.” Yes. Putting it very mildly, maybe. The overly excited 8-year-old she had gotten an account from earlier had described it more like ‘made an awesome lightning explosion like, pew-pew! Hadoken!’. It was, however, technically the truth, far as she could tell.

“Yes. Barring the defense of Rayla’s actions, that does conform to other stories I have heard." She turned to the thus far unually quiet girl across from her. "Rayla. Whatever your reasons, I’m sure you can understand that I cannot let what you did go unpunished, or you will look like some sort of hero.”

“She _is!_ What’s wrong with things looking like what they _are?”_ Callum said. That meek kid was almost off the chair now. What had gotten into him today?

Opeli elected to ignore the 11-year-old lightning wizard’s outburst and kept addressing the 12-year-old Jackie Chan reenactor. “Others may try to do what you did, and probably a lot less successfully.” Callum looked slightly- but certainly nothing close to _fully_ mollified, at that. “I was told you jumped from the flagpole to the roof, then rappelled down the drainpipe?”

“Yeah? Easiest way to get down?” Rayla shrugged.

“Of the students in this school, do you think anyone but you could have made that jump?”

“They could if they practiced! Like I do!”

Opeli sighed. “But do you think they _will_ practice? Or do you think there are… elements… in this school who would be tempted to try to do what you did _without_ the years of practice you have put in, if it was in any way seen as… _cool._ ” Soren would absolutely do that, and probably break his back. She had some serious concerns that it would take more than punishment to make that maneuver look not-cool, but she could at least _try_. Fighting the inevitable was in the job description. So she turned to Callum, next. “And you-”

“Callum didn’t do anything!” Rayla protested, indignant.

“He electrocuted three children, Rayla.”

“He got an A in physics!” Rayla argued, seeming to think this was a reasonable escuse. “I’m sure it wasn’t even deadly or anything! Callum knows all about the voltages and stuff, you can ask Mr. Ibis!” Yes, the amperage had been at a safe level, she had already consulted Ibis. She was expecting that argument from Callum himself, but the boy was just glaring, clearly seething, but not defending himself with anything like the passion he had Rayla.

“That does not excuse it-”

“They could have killed her!” Callum burst out. Oh there went the anger. He did have a temper, she knew, and he was almost shouting now, his fists balled, his eyes shining. “You _heard_ what happened, what they did! You think I should have stood by?! You’re saying that instead of talking to some mildly-electrocuted bullies’ parents, you’d rather explain to Runaan why his kid is-” Callum cut off, wiping his eyes angrily.

No. She would _not_ have preferred that.

But sometimes, her job entailed punishing crying children who were right to have done what they did.

* * *

They were left on a bench to wait for Ethari, the only parent free to pick them up in the middle of the day.

Callum glanced nervously sideways at Rayla next to him. Runaan was way more strict than Harrow. She was definitely in trouble. And she was hurt too, she had lied to Opeli about that, he could tell when she got down from the building and even now she was holding her left wrist, curled around herself like she did when she was hiding something.

It was all messed up-

“I’m sorry about your science fair project.” Rayla said sadly, looking down into her lap. “You’d have won, too.”

“I don’t know-” Callum started, but Rayla cut him off.

“You would. And now you won’t. And you’re in trouble.” Rayla looked upset, as if _that_ was the most pertinent issue on his mind right now. He was really very well past caring about his physics project or being suspended from school.

He shrugged, a bit sheepish. “Ah, it was worth it.” Obviously.

“What?!” Her head snapped up to look at him. She sounded… actually taken aback.

She… _didn’t_ know she was obviously more important? To him _and_ in general? That made the anger come back for some reason. An hour ago she had dangled from that pole only saved by the cord she had wrapped around her wrist and it had tightened and she had cried out in pain and… and- and the feelings of nauseous dread he had felt were still too close and intense and making indignation into actual anger. “What do you mean, ‘what’?” Callum snapped. “You don’t think _you_ getting smashed is more important to me than some glowy ball I built getting smashed?”

“But you were really proud of it.” She said, looking at him, still upset. “It made you feel good about yourself, I could tell.” He wanted to tell her that she did too, but the words got kinda… stuck in his throat. And she looked angry now, too. “And it’s not fair! I started it! It was my dumb idea to climb that flagpole.” But she had done it for Ez. _His_ brother. And his brother’s bearded dragon baby. Her anger… and _upset…_ made his own go away, somehow.

“Rayla?” He said, hesitant. She still looked angry. He knew she wasn’t angry at _him_ , but- “I have something for you. It’s probably a bit melted, because I couldn’t give it to you with Ez here, he would have eaten it, and anyway, it’s probably not hygienic at all, now that I think about it. Sorry. It’s a dumb idea. I’ll go to the nurse’s office and get you an actual- Uh. It’s closed now.”

And she was still cradling her left hand in her lap, although she wasn’t complaining, because Rayla didn’t do that. She hadn’t even cried when she had cut her forehead open on the monkey bars in 2nd grade, and most of the other kids, definitely including himself, _had_ been crying, because there had been a lot of blood and they were all sure she was dying.

That was when they became friends though, even though she had called him a dummy when he had gone over to her to hold her hand, because it hadn’t seemed right for her to die alone, and he had told her so, and in hindsight, that was probably just slightly over-dramatic.

He reached out to take her hand again now, and pushed up her sleeve a bit. The skin around her wrist was chafed and raw where the cord had wrapped around it. Swelling too, he thought. She really _should_ have gone to the nurse’s office. Ethari had been a nurse before he got his jewelry business running, he knew, so at least he could have a look when he got here.

He didn’t ask if it hurt, because it definitely did, and she would definitely say no.

Anyway, that was what the popsicle was for, it was one of those that was in a plastic cover instead of on a stick. It _was_ melted a bit, and kinda… floppy… which was not nice if you were gonna eat it, but turned out to be pretty good for wrapping around Rayla’s wrist, which he did.

When he made to withdraw his hand, she stopped him, gripping it. He was… holding hands with a girl. That was… weird. Well, it was not really _a girl_ but _Rayla,_ and he really wasn’t sure that made it more or less weird.

He didn’t draw his hand back, though, but squeezed hers, because if _he_ had been scared when she had been dangling from that pole, she probably had been too. Her hands were really small, he noted, smaller than his, even though she was older and taller.

They sat without speaking for a while. Without moving, too. Her hand was warm under his. The cold condensation from the popsicle made it wet, so it was probably not noticeable that his palms were all sweaty.

“Where did you even get that?” Rayla broke his reverie. “I mean… thank you. It’s nice.” That meant it did hurt, if the ice helped.

“Opeli has a small fridge with an icebox.” He explained. “She has those for the kids that get sent to her upset because they were bullied or something.”

“You _stole_ from the principal’s office? _You?”_ Rayla eyes were wide and staring. They were a really pretty grey-blue, he thought. Like stormy skies. His cheeks felt warm. Rayla’s gaze flicked down. She looked embarrassed too, but blushed in a much prettier way than he ever had. She looked back up, bashfully adding. “For _me?”_

“Uh. Yes?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It was no big deal, really, I knew where she kept them.” He had been to the principal’s office quite a few times when he was younger. Today was both the first time he had been there for misbehaving, and the first time he had been proud and not ashamed of the reason he was there. Grown-ups were really weird about things.

“Callum? Why did you know those popsicles were there?” Her eyes narrowed, as she looked at him. “Did someone make you upset enough that she would give you those? Because you just tell me who, and-”

“No!” Soren was in 9th grade and about twice Rayla’s size, but he _knew_ that wouldn’t deter her at all. And anyway, that wasn’t why. Usually. “I used to… _really_ not like to give presentations to the class. It’s pretty dumb, but it scared-” Honesty was important, his dad had said. And Rayla wouldn’t make fun of him for this. “- _scares_ me. I wish I was as brave as you.”

“What?!” She looked very offended. “You’re really brave! You were _always_ really brave! When we met? All the other kids were scared to come near me, but you did. That was really brave. I mean, it was pretty dumb that you thought I was dying, but it was brave of you to want to be there instead of standing back. And today too. Lots of people just stood there, watching. You didn’t.” The warmth in his cheeks were ran all the way through him, now. “You did okay though? When we did a presentation together last week?”

“Yeah, because _you_ were there-” Oh this was _definitely_ not a pretty blush. His cheeks were _burning._

But Rayla either didn’t notice or was kind enough to ignore it.

Callum scrambled through his backpack, he wasn’t sure what for, just that he couldn’t look at Rayla right now. Oh right, a distraction, that was what he was looking for. And he found it. Rayla’s shoes. He had never gotten around to giving them back to her, after she had unceremoniously shoved them at him so she could climb the flagpole.

He held them up now, presented like they were a gift, which was dumb, because they were already hers.

Yeah. This was the dumbest distraction in the history of ever, because how was holding her feet less embarrassing than holding her hand? He tied her shoelaces anyway, fumbling more than he should considering he had tied Ezran’s every morning for years.

“Thank you.” Rayla said. “For… everything. Saving me.”

“Well, I do owe you, there.” As long as he had known her, she had unfailingly stood up to people who teased him, completely uncaring about the consequences to herself. He had some idea what the last five years of school would have been like without her, because she had gone to Japan last year with Runaan and that had been pretty much the worst month of his life.

“What?! No, you don’t!” She looked almost offended.

“Yeah I do.” No point pretending he could do for her what she did for him. She wasn’t scared of anything, much, and unlike him, could definitely take care of herself.

Rayla looked down at her hands, fiddling with the corner of the plastic popsicle wrapper. “You remember back in 2nd grade? I was sad about my parents, and you drew my Sailor-Scout-ninja alter ego for me? Sailor Moonshadow? To cheer me up?”

“Yeah?”

She looked up at him, cheeks very red, but defiant. “Well, I still have that. I still look at it when I’m sad. So there.”

”What, really? I could draw you a way better one-” He had used the crappy school crayons, and-

“Dummy! No!” But she was laughing now. “I meant, you… make it better. All the time. For me. You don’t have to do the _same_ things I do for you. We’re not good at the same things, anyway.”

And that was a good thing, he realized.

They could learn things from each other.

They already had.

Rayla reached out her good hand, asking for comfort, because he had taught her that she could and he would give it and never laugh, and Callum took it, because she had taught him to do the things that scared him, because they might be really good things.

* * *

Here's the Sailor Rayla Callum drew when he was 7:

And the header for the original birthday bash story:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> In the next chapter, "Truth or Dare", Opeli fails to make their actions in this chapter look not-cool, so Callum and Rayla find out they're popular, get invited to a middle school party and... play a game that goes about as well as you'd expect. It'll be finished in a few day probably, it's almost there.


	2. Truth or Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Callum and Rayla find out they're popular, get invited to a middle school party and... play a game that goes about as well as you'd expect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read and commented and kudos'ed! I wasn't at all sure people would be interested in more of this, it was so awesome to get so much positive feedback, especially on something I already posted once.
> 
> Hope you'll like part 2!

September 6th, 1998  
Vancouver BC

This was weird. Super weird. Were they… popular? That was definitely new. New and weird.

Rayla had had a lot of coolness-potential, definitely stunted by her association with _him_ and he had seen it coming that Opeli would fail to sell her flagpole heroics as not-cool, but… both of them?

Rayla seemed to agree, waving the pink, scented paper at Callum, like an accusation. “ _We_ got invited? Us. To Melanie’s birthday party? _Us_.”

“You said ‘us’ twice,” Callum pointed out. They _were_ meant to be doing English homework, after all. “Thrice, if you count ‘we’, which you really should, it’s the same word.”

“You know ‘thrice’ and not the difference between ‘we’ and ‘us’,” Rayla snickered. “You’re _weird._ ”

“ _You’re_ weird.”

“I _know._ We’re _both_ weird. Which is why it’s _super_ weird that we were invited to Melanie’s-”

“You’re super redundant today.”

“ _You’re_ redundantly dorky.”

“ _You’re_ a dork!”

“I _know!_ We’re _both_ dorks. Which is why it’s so-” Rayla couldn’t keep it up any longer, collapsing in peals of laughter.

“Rayla!” Runaan’s voice came through the closed door like it was open air, and in seconds, it _was._ “You were meant to do English homework. Just because you are suspended does _not_ mean you get to slack off.”

“But I used ‘redundant’ in a sentence and everything!” Rayla complained.

“My pride knows no bounds,” Runaan said drily. “Back to work.”

Rayla rolled her eyes at that. “Oh no, put my spidey-senses in the arsebasket then, where the malfunctioning arsebasket-cases belong, because I’m _really_ sensing an upper bound, right around the height of a standard-issue flagpole-”

“English homework. Now.”

“But I used ‘malfunctioning’ in a sentence!”

“You used ‘arsebasket’ in the same sentence.”

“They don’t even out at _all!_ I’m a syllable ahead, so there! Witness my English-”

“Rayla!”

Rayla sighed dramatically, resigned to her fate. “Fine. I’ll go do the dishes-” Rayla had to do the most hated dishes when she took the sass too far. It was a pretty unfair and inefficient punishment, Callum thought, because she usually did _all_ the dishes. She was _very_ sassy, and Runaan was _very_ strict.

“You will _not_ do the dishes,” Runaan said. “You have a sprained wrist, which you seem to keep forgetting. You will do your English homework, in a timely manner and with no further-” Runaan’s lips quirked just slightly. “-redundant tangents.”

“He’s disappointed,” Rayla sighed, after he had shut the door behind him. “For a change.”

“I don’t understand _why,_ though. It was so brave, what you did.”

“Ah. I do.” Rayla ruefully picked at the purple ace bandage at her left wrist. “He was _very_ clear on that. It was, uuuh… ill-considered, reckless… uh ‘beyond the pale’, whatever _that_ means-” Callum didn’t even _disagree,_ but… she was really quite upset, under all the arsebasketry, and he was angry at Runaan for not seeing that when it was so obvious.

“ _He’s_ redundant. At least a few of those are the same thing.” He picked up the birthday invitation, presenting it to her like a trophy. “I’m holding the strawberry-scented evidence that majority has spoken. It was _cool._ ”

She looked back up at him, a smile slowly spreading on her face.

Callum’s heart went all weird.

Super, _super_ weird.

* * *

They _were_ popular.

It _was_ weird.

And not just weird, but also a lot less fun than he would have imagined, because it apparently involved talking to lots of different people he didn’t know and playing party games that weren’t Trivial Pursuit.

Like Truth or Dare, which he had thought was some American movie-thing, but it was real? And people _chose_ to play it?

Rayla looked a bit skeptical too. “So, you choose between having to tell people stuff you don’t want to, or getting to do something fun?” the she asked, incredulous. “And that’s a _choice?”_

Rayla _was_ oh-so-daring by her own description, but Callum felt pretty much the exact opposite. It sounded horrifying to have to let someone else decide what you did.

The truth?

The truth was just saying something out loud that was already a thing, how bad could _that_ be?

Rayla got impatient before it was even her turn, leaving to get a greater variety of snacks than _his_ wholly unsuccessful snack table excursion had yielded.

“Truth or dare, Callum?” Melanie prodded, and Callum turned away from Rayla talking to what looked like fans of her flagpole stunt, and back to the game.

“Truth,” he said, without hesitation.

Melanie smiled prettily, although nowhere near as pretty as Rayla, even with the shiny pink lipstick stuff. “Do you _like-_ like Rayla?”

Oh.

Arsebasket.

His face was _burning,_ and he was sputtering and it was dawning on him that it really wouldn’t matter _what_ he said at this point because people were staring and there was no way he was-

It was a dumb game, and about to ruin _everything._

And his eyes were stinging now, maybe the _only_ thing that could possibly make this worse.

“Callum!” Rayla was running towards him, hands outstretched. “What’s wrong-” Oh look, it got worse.

“Nothing!” he said gasping for air that didn’t seem to come.

Rayla clearly didn’t buy that, reaching out to hold him and that was just-

He abruptly pulled away from her grip, and she winced because that must have hurt her wrist and that minute little flicker of pain across her face seemed to echo and magnify inside him. And then much deeper hurt made its way into her eyes because he was backing away from her and he had _never_ done that, or ever thought he would.

And oh, tears were properly out now.

What were you supposed to do when the whole world was breaking at once?

He ran.

There were… people. Too many people. But there was a staircase. Good. That was good.

Another floor with… way less people and… a door.

A door. A lockable door. Really, that was all he wanted right now… _needed_ right now.

The lock clicked behind him.

Callum sank down, his back against the door, trying to breathe like his mom had taught him.

He _really_ wanted his mom right now.

He gasped into the knees of his pants not getting enough air.

“Callum!” Rayla was banging on the door.

He didn’t answer. His hand twisted in the fabric of his pants. He couldn’t… what was he supposed to say to her?

“Callum!” More banging. “I know you’re in there! Let me in! Or at least… talk to me-”

He couldn’t. He didn’t know what to say, how to fix this.

“Callum!”

He went to the foreign bed and bundled up part of the bedspread to pull it over his head.

She wasn’t leaving though. She stopped banging but she was still out there, he could tell. Right on the other side of that door.

“Callum?” she said, not yelling anymore, but pleading. “Let me in. We can lock the door again, alright? And you can tell me what upset you?”

He really, _really_ couldn’t though.

“Rayla, go away!” It came out too panicky, because he didn’t know what to say to that. And he was being _mean,_ he knew, but… if he let her in, she would find out and then she wouldn’t want to be his friend anymore.

She would forgive him for being a jerkface, she had before, and there was a dance and everything.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone!” he said, managing to not sound like he was crying.

He buried his face in the foreign bed’s sweet and cloying fabric softener smell.

Rayla’s footsteps left.

* * *

Rayla reluctantly left the locked door. Stupid fancy rich-person door with proper high-quality knob-lock. She would have needed her lockpicks and not just a hairpin, and she wasn’t in the habit of bringing those to birthday parties.

She would… let him cool down and come back.

Maybe _…_ find out what the hell happened. That would help.

And she knew just where to start.

“What did you say to him?!” Rayla demanded, marching up to point at Melanie.

“Nothing!” Melanie said hurriedly. “I _really_ didn’t think he’d react like that! I thought it’d be cute and you’d kiss and-”

“What?!” Rayla snapped, her eyes widening at the complete absurdity. “WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HIM?”

“I just asked if he liked you, which… duh… he does. It’s not really a secret, he’s _really_ obvious about it-”

“WHAT?!”

“You… _didn’t_ know. Wow. You really _are_ both dorks. But you’re _cute_ dorks, and it was super brave, what you did for that frog-” Bearded dragon. “-and I just thought it would be romantic?”

“He locked himself in your parents’ bedroom!” Rayla gestured up at the staircase to the upper floors. “Does that seem romantic to you?!”

“Look,” Melanie said, patting her shoulder. “Just calm down. He’ll come around. Let him get used to the idea. He seemed like _he_ was a bit surprised.”

Rayla plonked down hard on the couch, burying her burning face in her hands.

What a shitshow.

And Melanie had no idea what she was talking about, where was she getting off? They were _friends_ and that had been the friendship-ruining kinda question and obviously Callum hadn’t known what to say to that. There was a difference between a mutual understanding that you were just friends and _saying_ you didn’t like someone like that.

She would have understood though, of course she would. She wouldn’t have… _liked_ hearing it, but who _liked_ hearing that someone else didn’t like them?

“Hey, if he just _never_ comes out, I’ll find you another boyfriend, okay?” Melanie suggested, helpful as ever.

“No thanks,” Rayla said curtly.

“It wouldn’t be any trouble! You’d be really pretty if you borrowed my clothes and lipgloss.”

“Yeah!” Melanie’s friend agreed. And others were joining now, in some twisted display of girl solidarity.

“I bet you could get an 8th-grader, no problem, if you just-”

“No!” Rayla exclaimed, horrified. _Why_ did girls think boys got automatically cooler just because they were older? “Seriously, Melanie. What will it take to completely change the topic? And I do mean _completely._ ”

“Play a round of Truth or Dare?”

Well, it had gone pretty badly for Callum, true, but _she_ wasn’t dumb enough to pick truth.

“Ugh. Fine.”

* * *

It was her turn. She had been left mercifully unmolested by the previous rounds, except having beaten some poor boy who was dared to arm-wrestle her.

“Truth or dare?” Melanie asked.

“Dare,” Rayla said firmly. “Duh.”

Melanie smiled prettily. Not nearly as pretty as Callum, who probably _wasn’t_ smiling right now.

And now she _really_ just wanted to get this over with, so she could go try to talk to him again.

“I dare you to climb up to my parents’ bedroom balcony.” Where… Callum was.

Oh.

Arsebasket.

But excitedly squealing kids were already tugging her into the yard with them. And she _had_ said she would do it.

There _was_ a balcony up there, with a window and glass doors next to it. The room was dark, so she couldn’t see Callum in there, but he must still be, because he hadn’t come out through the door and he had never been wild about adopting her alternate window/wall/drainpipe descent routes. Maybe this was actually two birds with one stone? If Callum could _see_ her, and see how she felt, he would talk to her, she was sure.

Rayla experimentally rattled the drainpipe.

Sturdy.

So, she could do it. Her dumb wrist was the only thing elevating this from ‘piece of cake’ to ‘mildly challenging’.

She made it halfway up the drainpipe before she realized ‘mildly’ might be… ‘moderately’. Her wrist was throwing her off more than she expected, and the wall was too smooth for her to use her legs like would be ideal.

She stopped, panting, cradling her left hand to her chest, balancing on a screw-thingie.

People were cheering.

She didn’t get _why?_ It was no big deal, would have been way easier than the flagpole if it wasn’t for her wrist. But as it was, it was _not_ easier. At all.

She pushed up, still. Screw them. It was not just about a dare, it was about Callum, who wasn’t letting her in. She had to fix it.

The metal railing of the balcony was not _quite within_ reach. She could jump it though. Definitely.

She did, to dramatic gasps from below.

Just _how_ starved for entertainment _were_ these kids? It wasn’t even I big deal, the metal railing was an easy-

And the railing _broke_ under her grip, rusty metal scraping against her palm and her foot slipping and brick scraping against her shin and then for… at least long enough for her heart to make it to her throat… there was _no_ hold, until she gripped metal with her left.

It _hurt,_ yanking at her wrist much harder than the drainpipe or Callum had.

But she didn’t let go, managing to swing back up to grip with her right, the torn skin on her palm taking her weight with no grace and rather a lot of hurt, but she was at least… hanging in there.

Rayla almost sobbed with relief when she pulled herself over the railing to collapse on the sweet, sweet, _horizontal_ surface of the balcony.

She got to her feet, a bit shakily, and took a dramatic bow at the entertainment-starved kids down on the lawn.

Great. She had assured them she was fine, and the dare was fulfilled. Now? Callum.

She felt a bit unsteady and holding onto the railing was clearly out, so she leaned against the door to the bedroom, her palms against the glass.

Callum was in there, face down on the bed, covering his head with his arms.

He hadn’t seen her.

He didn’t… _want_ to see her.

He had been clear about that, and he was already upset and-

… this was _wrong._

It was wrong to come up here, to try and force herself in when he didn’t want to see her.

It had been really, really stupid.

It had been stupid and inconsiderate and really a bit more than moderately challenging, and her right palm and shin was bleeding and throbbing and her left wrist screaming and the trip down was probably going to be _worse._

She curled up under the window, where neither the kids on the lawn nor Callum could see her. She just had to rest a bit… and then she’d climb back down, hopefully without the audience. She hugged her knees to her chest against the night chill, cold now against her sweaty arms and legs, and seeping into her butt and back from the brick and concrete.

Was this what being popular was like?

She would have much rather spent tonight losing at Trivial Pursuit against Callum, and she _hated_ losing _and_ games with no strategy except memorizing useless knowledge.

At least Callum would have been smug and annoying instead of crying alone in there.

Rayla didn’t know how much time passed, she just knew she was a lot colder, and her leggings were wet at the knees where she had pressed her stupid leaky face against them.

“Rayla?” There was a familiar gentle hand against her shoulder, and then Callum was kneeling opposite her. “Are you hurt?” he asked, near-panic in his voice.

Huh? Why would he think that?

“I’m fine,” she said, a bit baffled.

“Okay,” he breathed out in relief. “Okay. Not your blood on the door. Got it. Just some… weird… really, _really_ creepy coincidence right out of a horror movie. Okay. Not your blood. Someone else’s blood then. On the door. Someone else’s _fresh_ blood on the-”

“Callum! Calm down! It’s mine.” She looked up at the red smear she had left on the glass, really not much at all, but she supposed without context it was just a bit of a creepy thing to find in a strange room in a strange house, alone and upset.

She showed him her right palm, to reassure him. “See?” she sighed. “It’s fine. Sorry I’m… here. It was a dare. I’ll… climb back down.” She couldn’t just… guilt trip him into talking to her again by looking miserable, that wasn’t fair at all, even if she _was_ miserable.

“What?! _Climb back down?!_ Are you actually insane?! You’re bleeding!” He cradled both her hands in his, inspecting the scrapes.

“It’s _fine_.”

“You’re the absolute worst judge of that. Come in, okay? There’s a connected bathroom. We can get you cleaned up.”

* * *

“You know you need to tell Ethari,” Callum said, trying to tamp down on the anxiety, as he rummaged through the bathroom. “Rusty metal is how you get blood poisoning-”

“No,” she explained patiently. “It’s how you get tetanus. And I’m up to date on my shot. As if I’ve never poked myself on dirty, rusty metal before,” Rayla smirked, entirely unconcerned. “Pfft. I’ve _lived,_ Callum.”

“And I’d like for you to _keep_ living,” he groaned. Why was she like this? “Ah!” he exclaimed, as he pulled out a box of medical supplies from the bottom of the cupboard.

“I can do it,” Rayla said, not looking at him.

“I can do it easier, because I have two hands that aren’t messed up and you have none.”

“I can… go somewhere else to do it, I meant. Leave you alone.”

“Oh.” Callum looked down, ashamed.

She was hurt on his account and would have rather climbed back down the drainpipe bleeding, than knock on the door and talk to him and now she-

She must have heard the stuff people were saying. And not want… him. Like _that._ He hadn’t _expected_ her to, he had been _fine_ being her friend, it was the stupid truth messing everything up.

And dare was _really_ not a lot better, he thought, as he looked at where it had gotten Rayla, bleeding and shivering and cradling her left wrist to her chest.

It was all _wrong._

He _still_ didn’t know what to say or how to fix it, but he could at least make sure she didn’t die from some weird not-blood-poisoning infection, he thought.

He tried to be as fast as he could, he had some practice after five years of being friends with Rayla, four of which she had owned a skateboard.

He could see the protest in her face when he got the gauze, probably because it would be hard to hide from Runaan and Ethari, but bandaids didn’t stick well to palms and the scrapes were deep in a few places. She didn’t… _actually_ protest, so she was… she still thought _she_ had done something wrong.

And _that_ was wrong.

“You’re still cold,” he said, as he finished, retrieving the bedspread and dragging the heavy thing after him to where they had been sitting on the floor.

“I don’t want some foreign people’s _bedspread,_ ” she said, horrified.

He sighed, pulling his sweatshirt off instead.

“Now _you’ll_ be cold,” she complained.

“No, because _I_ don’t mind using the bedspread. See?” He wrapped it around himself, and the stiff quilted fabric surrounded him like one of those cone-shaped tents. “A flawless solution. And I already cried into this thing. I claimed it now.”

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Rayla said, pulling his shirt over her head. “I shouldn’t have… pushed. I’m sorry.”

They _didn’t_ talk, for a bit, because he didn’t know what to say.

“Callum?” she asked, looking ridiculously miserable, still shivering, shrinking into his shirt. “I’m still cold.”

It was so hard to said no to her, especially when he had already made such mess of things and _she_ was trying to fix it when it was all him.

He opened the folds of stiff fabric, and she entered his bedspread tent, pulling her knees up to her chest to fit. Callum released his hold on the bedspread to put both arms around the shivery little Rayla-ball and it fell around them, closing them in on all sides.

For a while, it was just darkness, getting warmer and more humid with their exhaled breath.

He could smell Rayla’s berry-scented shampoo and the antiseptic cream he had used on her palm and also peanuts, and he remembered there were still a bunch of those in his pockets because there had been way too many people he didn’t know by the snack table and he had panicked and just grabbed a giant handful and retreated.

Really, he was better off not being popular enough to be invited to these things, he really was completely terrible at parties. He was terrible at most things, really, but he had done alright, being her friend until… what? 7th grade started? They got ‘cool’ or whatever from doing something so horrible he still couldn’t think about it properly? Truth or Dare entered the picture? Rayla got all pretty and fanciable?

No, she was always that, he was just a dummy that hadn’t really noticed until… he didn’t know. One of those other things happened, maybe.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “For… everything. Hurting you. Leaving like that. It’s not _your_ fault you’re so…”

“What?” she asked.

He could at least tell her. She never really understood how great she was, and he wanted her to know so she didn’t think she had _done_ anything to… lead him on or anything, except be impossibly pretty and brave and amazing, which she couldn’t help. “So pretty and brave and amazing. You’re basically impossible to not like. But that’s not _your_ fault, and you really don’t have to… be weird around me. I’ll get over it-”

“WHAT?!”

Oh no _._ Was he really… _this_ stupid? Had she _not_ heard and he had just…?

Oh _no._

“You… didn’t hear… what happened?” he groaned. _Why_ was he like this?! If Rayla was still his friend tomorrow, he would ask her to train him until he was flexible enough to kick himself.

“Yeah, I… heard,” Rayla said, still sounding stunned. “Melanie told me. She said you liked me. Like _that_.”

“But-”

“I didn’t think you… _did_ -”

“Heeeey!” Rayla was cut off, and abruptly flinched away from him, when Melanie’s loud voice made it right through the door and their bedspread tent. “Are you _both_ in there?”

“Shhh!” someone else interjected. “Maybe they’re kissing!”

“Ooooh…”

There were giggles. Whispers. Soft bumps against the door and floor like people sitting down. And a marked _lack_ of the sound of anyone _leaving_.

Callum felt a soft touch against his lips in the darkness.

It was Rayla’s fingers, not a kiss but for a tiny moment he had thought it was, and now his cheeks were so warm she could probably feel it-

But she was moving, and probably _didn’t_ notice. As quietly as she could, she twisted out of his embrace and pulling the bedspread with her, snuck back toward to the balcony.

He didn’t know… would she want him to-

She turned back and smiled at him, her cheeks pink, as she went through the glass door.

Callum followed.

* * *

They couldn’t hear the whispers out here, which hopefully meant the others also couldn’t hear _them_ as long as they refrained from any more dramatic exclamations.

And together under the bedspread it wasn’t really cold.

Even if she knew now… she had smiled. And sat next to him.

All things considered, it was the most comfortable he had been since they got here.

“Sorry about that dumb game,” Callum said. “It’s… it goes all wrong in my head, when I don’t have time to think about things.”

Rayla knew that though. And he knew that she knew. And she knew that he knew that she-

Never mind.

“Ah, I think that game has some potential.” Rayla smirked in the dim light. Her head was turned away, but he knew that expression so well he could imagine it from the sound of her voice. “If you take away all the… pressure. And other people.”

“We should play our own version then,” he suggested. “Just us. With none of the weird pressure messing things up. But you’re not allowed to pick dare. Okay? And I mean _permanently._ Forever. You’re _never_ allowed to pick dare again.”

He looked ruefully down at the blue and red spiderman bandaids on her shin and the white gauze peeking out at her- or rather, his, right shirt sleeve and the purple ace bandage at her left. She already had her skateboard and her continued attempts at imitating Jackie Chan stunts with varying - although he had to admit, _impressive -_ degrees of success. The absolute last thing she needed was _another_ vehicle to mess herself up. He was looking right at the state of the balcony railing, she could have _fallen_ like she almost had before _-_

“Truth,” she said, looking right at him, her grey eyes almost luminous in the light of the moon.

“You decide,” he smiled. “Just tell me something true about you I don’t know.” He knew a lot.

She went very red. “Um. I know what I… _want_ to say. But… give me… a bit of time? I don’t… _know._ I mean… I think I do, but… I want to say it right. All… pretty, like you did.”

He did _what?!_ But… he had said it in the damp darkness and peanut smell under some foreign parents’ bedspread! And he definitely hadn’t said it half as well as he could have if given time to think. But maybe that was the thing? Maybe he should think less and _do_ more? Be more daring?

First though, he needed to let Rayla know that it was okay, because it _was,_ it was okay and good that she was stopping to think before doing things like ill-advised, reckless, beyond-the-pale-whatever drainpipe climbing or… confessions.

“Yeah!” he said hurriedly. “We agreed. No pressure. And just us. And… I don’t really know either. All this is… really confusing and weird. Like… fizzy bubbles inside. And outside. Because my palms get weird and sweaty and… yeah. Time is good.”

“Oh! _That’s_ true! I know _that!_ That there’s… fizz. For me, too.”

Fizz rose in his stomach, as if on cue.

Rayla set her jaw, and shook off the awkwardness in that way he had always admired and envied. Like the paisley-patterned bedspread hanging off her head was a confidence cloak.

“Now you,” she said firmly. “Truth or dare? And _you’re_ not allowed to pick truth. That went horribly, last time.”

He nodded. “Dare, then.”

“I dare you to do something daring,” she said, grinning, a private challenge in her eyes.

He swallowed, and carefully took her right hand, threading his fingers between hers.

“See,” he said, his voice cracking with nerves but… daring was the challenge. “Perfect fit. My palms are really sweaty and the gauze is nicely absorbent? So my master plan came to fruition.”

“Only _your_ master plan to hold a girl’s hand would involve talking about your palm-sweat,” she snickered. It was different from usual, more… breathless.

“Only _you_ would manage to mess up _both_ ysour hands enough to not have a non-sweat-absorbent hand free to hold.”

“Only you and me, huh?”

“Only you and me,” Callum agreed, and then added truth and daring in one. “Only you.”

“Only _you_.”

* * *

Here's some bonus art of Callum and Rayla in this continuity:

And of Rayla and Ethari in 90s heavy metal shirts, because that's my headcanon for their music tastes. Story is set in 1998, so Ethari is in Iron Maiden, Fear of the Dark and Rayla in Tool, Ænima

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I thought there was some thematic potential in Truth or Dare for Rayllum, considering oh-so-daring but emotionally guarded Rayla and anxious but emotionally open Callum.


	3. Gifting for Dummies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gifting is hard when you're a new thing - extra-sappy Christmas Special!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a very gooey Christmas episode!

December, 1998  
Vancouver BC

###### December 9th

Rayla had barely talked to him the whole way back from school, and Callum didn’t understand _why._

It had to have something to do with gifts, because he had asked what she wanted for Christmas and she had made a joke instead of answering and then clammed up like she did sometimes.

Was there some code or something he had missed? Was it too soon? They had been ‘together’ for 93 days, and that was a really long time, the longest of anyone in their grade. The first 17 of those days might be debatable, but he chose to count it from the day he had taken her hand at Melanie’s party. And it was dumb anyway, because she was his best friend, and he had given her Christmas gifts for years, it would make _no_ sense that they should stop just because they were a thing now.

Runaan had said they were too young to be boyfriend and girlfriend, so ‘thing’ it was. It was okay. They both agreed on what ‘thing’ meant, because they had talked about it.

They just had to talk about _this,_ too.

* * *

Callum looked at Rayla, snowflakes settling in her hair, almost as bright.

There was embarrassed pink in her cheeks and she was looking down at her knitted hat twisting between her fingers, and it wasn’t right at all, that she should feel this way.

He had sometimes been confronted with the fact that… well… Rayla’s family was not _poor,_ exactly, but-

Yeah. She had 2 dollars and 15 cents to use for a gift and he had 56. And 18 cents. He even had more cents.

And Rayla cared about things being fair and she would never accept that they share _his_ gift budget, even though it wasn’t really fair either, that he had gotten way-too-fancy-for-his-skill-level watercolors from some rich relative he barely knew and had exchanged them for something more sensible and got 41 dollars back too and she didn’t have rich relatives and also not as high of an allowance as him even though she had more chores.

“What if neither of us spent _any_ money. And we just _make_ gifts for each other?” he suggested.

“Yeah, that’ll make it _more_ uneven,” Rayla sighed. “You’ve _seen_ my drawings.”

“I won’t draw, then. I’ll do something I’ve never done before. And you do that too?”

“That’s very daring, Callum.” She was smiling now, though.

It _was_ daring. It was their first Christmas as a thing, and he wanted to get her something good, and not his first attempt at wood carving or bone carving or… stone carving. Really, he had tried his hand at a _lot_ of stuff, it was mostly just the stuff involving knives he had steered clear off, so those would be things he hadn’t done before.

And Rayla wouldn’t be happy if he cut himself, and he might, he tended to get distracted. His dad wouldn’t even let him use the really sharp knives in the kitchen until he managed a three-month streak without cutting himself with the peeler or the little peeling knife for babies that even Ez was allowed to use.

But you did a lot of things for the people you cared about, and Rayla looked much less upset and he supposed… he would be daring. Gifts should be good things that made people feel good, not bad.

“Okay,” Rayla agreed, reaching out to take his hand, twining a few of her fingers between his. “But nothing with knives. I like you with _five_ fingers.”

“But we would fit, if I only had four!” he laughed, intertwining their fingers fully and wiggling his leftover pinky to demonstrate, when he ran out of spaces between her fingers to put his.

She smiled, and it was like warmth inside him. Gentle heat, like ginger and cinnamon. Like Christmas.

Yeah, they fit, regardless of amount of fingers.

###### December 10th

Rayla never believed she was as amazing as she was. He should make her a gift that would remind her, maybe?

Like a big, framed sign she could hang on the wall, saying ‘you’re amazing and brave and funny and have the softest hair and the most-‘

Yeah, he didn’t think Rayla would want that on her wall, she got really embarrassed about feelings. And it was just for _her,_ anyway, not anyone else.

He should put those word somewhere she could carry with her, and hide if she didn’t want others to see them, and take them out to look at when she wanted to, like she did with his not-very-good crayon drawing of Sailor Moonshadow.

* * *

Callum… he really liked dreaming, thinking up things that weren’t real, like adventures and wizards and dragons. He had been a bit upset that she hadn’t liked his dragon riding books.

They were so _cheesy_ though. No sense of humor about themselves.

He had read the Diskworld books she had lent him, hoping they would be a compromise they could both like because they had magic _and_ self-awareness, but she could tell he deep down still preferred the cheesy ones with the knights unironically riding dragons into battle and wizards with lightning powers.

And she wanted him to have his fantasies. He was worried sometimes, because people made fun of him for reading those books and she had too a few times, but she wouldn’t ever again. _He_ liked that stuff, and she didn’t _really,_ but she wasn’t at all bored when he talked about it because he got the cutest face when he was excited about something.

She wanted him to know… he was okay the way he was and _she_ was okay with the way he was. Cheese included.

She should make him a dragon, maybe? Dragons were cool, they definitely agreed on that.

###### December 12th

Callum had picked up his nice paper all… automatically. And he _wasn’t_ supposed to be drawing anything for her.

He had drawn a _card,_ but that didn’t count, the card wasn’t part of the _gift._ It turned out really well too, because there were no rules for the card, so he could use his colored pencils that he was actually good at using.

The wood anemones stood out in highlighted white against the grey cardstock, like the image he had had in his head. They were Rayla’s favorites, and only grew in Europe he thought, and she missed them. She had shown him pictures, whole forest floors covered in lush green and dotted with little white stars.

He had drawn them for her once before, in black sharpie and green whiteboard marker that had smeared, on her cast when she had broken her arm two years ago. It hadn’t been very good, but Rayla had liked them and been sad when the plaster saw cut right through the anemones.

She had kept that crayon-drawing of Sailor Moonshadow, since 2nd grade. She would remember, he thought.

He emptied his pencil case onto the desk. Everything was used, except… the chisel tipped calligraphy pen? He had bought it because he had studied the drawings in Ethari’s Asterix comics and thought they must have been drawn with a chisel tipped pen and he had wanted to try that. It had been a bit of a fail to draw with it, but surely _writing_ with it would be easier, because that was what it was meant for?

Pencil first though, because who was so burdened with confidence they went straight for the pen?

* * *

It was supposed to be a dragon, but it looked more like a tiger, which wouldn’t be so bad, because who wouldn’t like a giant, awesome cat? But it looked like a _lumpy_ tiger. Not an awesome one.

A tiger that spent too much time near Chernobyl. A sad, mutated, lumpy tiger with radiation tumors that was supposed to be wings.

Not even close to good enough for Callum, who thought really hard about things and always made her nice things.

Rayla glared at the ugly excuse for a dragon, willing it to be less horrible. It wasn’t even cute-ugly, just ugly.

She smushed the whole thing into a ball. Clearly, she had been too ambitious. At least now it looked like a ball, the thing she had been aiming to make.

But Callum _really_ didn’t like ball games of any kind, he was not very good at catching _or_ throwing things.

He had liked bowling, that one time? The railings had been up because Ezran was there, and it had just been the three of them and Ethari, so no one was making fun of anyone’s throwing technique.

She supposed she could poke holes in the clay surface and make a tiny bowling ball?

…that was seriously her best idea?

Callum liked dragons and wizards and magic and stuff, not stupid balls.

She cocked her head at the ball, then rolled it tentatively to make it more oblong.

A dragon egg was just a dragon before it _was_ a dragon, right? A pre-dragon? Better than a bowling ball, that was for sure.

It wouldn’t work _this_ size though, she thought, looking critically at the vaguely egg-shaped ball, only about twice the size of a chicken egg. It needed to be _bigger._ Weird how a dragon could be really tiny and still a dragon but a dragon _egg_ needed to be big to be a dragon egg?

It was fun to cut off more slices of clay, anyway. Like garroting someone, if that someone had a really soft neck that you could cut through with a piece of wire.

###### December 25th

It was somewhat wonky calligraphy.

Callum had only _kinda_ figured out the chisel tip, and the letters got a bit off base because it had been dangerously daring to think he could write straight on unlined paper, but really, it wasn’t too bad, style-wise.

The _content…_

Yeah.

It was what it was. At least no one would doubt that it really _was_ his first attempt at poetry.

He just hoped Rayla got the _meaning._

* * *

It had been a slightly lumpy egg. Miss Driver had insisted she hollow it out or it wouldn’t dry and it would crack in the kiln, and the hollowing process had definitely made it lumpier.

It was okay though, who knew what dragons’ eggs really looked like? Maybe they were lumpy?

But the glaze had been nice, shimmery blue with lighter patches that made it look like it was glowing.

 _Had_ been nice.

 _Had_ been lumpy.

 _Now_ it was broken, because stupid Runaan had chosen _today_ to not scold her for running in the house.

“I dropped the egg!” she wailed.

“Rayla, I have told you about running in the house-” So _now_ Runaan could remind her? After it was too late and she had _already_ messed things up?

He had told her she was too emotional too, and what was she even supposed to do with that? And that she didn’t dry the dishes properly and they would get mildew, which was clearly just some fairytale to make children waste inordinate amounts of time drying the dishes. That she should tuck in the sheets so her bed wasn’t lumpy to sleep in, even though _she_ was the one sleeping in it and should get to decide if she liked it lumpy. That the swearing and the sass had to stop, that she was clearly just ‘acting out’, whatever that meant. And… so many more things she didn’t do right.

How was she supposed to know the not-running-in-the-house thing was _important?_

“You told me too _late!”_ she accused angrily, wiping her stupid leaky face so Runaan wouldn’t see.

“Do not project blame onto me for your inability to listen the first fifteen times you are told a reasonable rule,” Runaan said calmly.

She sobbed, her words lost in the misery, and then just… ran away, leaving the broken egg, the living room with her not-dad and the smell of Ethari’s cookies and the little feathery fake birds with little Christmas hats just staring at her with their beady little eyes all judgy.

The door to her room slammed behind her, another thing she had been told at least fifteen times to not do, and failed to listen to.

The room was dark, the window over her bed seeming to glow with the fairy lights in the tree outside and the snowflakes falling slowly down.

She climbed into her bed, leaning her forehead against the cold windowpane, looking out into the glowy whiteness, mocking the vibe with how calm and pretty it was.

Callum would be by in two hours and the shops were closed even if she _had_ had more than two dollars and fifteen cents. And she didn’t have a room full of art supplies, like Callum, _or_ the ability to make something magical and amazing in two hours.

“Rayla?” Runaan’s voice on the other side of the door. Not angry anymore because… she had cried in front of him, and Runaan folded like a wet rag when she cried and that felt like a failure too, because he shouldn’t stop scolding her for something she had done wrong just because she had done _another_ thing wrong too- “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” she muttered, very quietly. But he heard.

There was the squeak of the door. Clink of broken ceramics. He must have brought the shards of broken dragon egg. Squeak of bed springs beside her. Then a warm hand on her back.

She shifted to sit next to Runaan on the edge of the bed, because she… had to fix things. It was Christmas, and you were supposed to be happy and with family and… Runaan was hers, whatever else he also was and wasn’t.

“Rayla, surely this is not just about your craft project?” Runaan asked. “You can make another one? Or Ethari can help you fix this one, you know he has at least six types of glue we do not know the purpose of, certainly _one_ of them will work for ceramics? Or-” He didn’t _get_ it!

“I messed up! I know I did! Now _and-_ Well, _always_!” She sank forward. Runaan probably didn’t understand feeling like you messed up, he had probably never messed up his whole life. “That’s pretty much the point.”

“Rayla. I know you like this boy, but if he is worth your time and affections he will not be upset when you tried your hardest.”

“I fail _all_ the time. At all the things you want be to do… to _be._ I didn’t want to fail _him-_ “

“If you really think you have failed because of something that was an accident, I think _I_ might have failed, with you. Ethari and I have talked about that. That I may be… a bit hard on you.”

Her lips quirked. “A _bit?_ ” she snickered, wiping her eyes when stupid tears that was failure too, came out with the laughter.

“A big bit,” Runaan said, and that was a _big_ admission, from him. “Sometimes. I see what you could do, how talented you are… but you are more than that, and more to _me,_ and I have not been so good at communicating that to you.”

“It’s okay,” she hiccupped. “I’m a bit of a handful. A big bit. Sometimes.”

She hesitated, looking up at Runaan’s face, all blurry, but then she climbed into his lap and buried her face in his neck. She used to do that all time when she was little, without distance, without _hesitating_ like she had now.

It had changed, when she started to understand things more, like what he was really saying to her and what he _never_ said, and that she wasn’t _really_ their child, not… _officially…_

But Runaan wrapped his arms around her like he used to, and pulled her close into his chest. Maybe he hadn’t wanted the distance either?

It was a while, with no talking, because not _all_ feelings needed words.

“I will help you fix it,” Runaan said. “Your egg.”

But… no. That wasn’t right, wasn’t… how it went.

Rayla shook her head against his neck. “No. It’s not broken. I don’t need to fix it, I just need to think about it differently.” She drew back to look at him, because he had _just_ said he wasn’t sure either and that was a big thing for Runaan to admit and… _she_ could say _this_ first. “It’s like our family, you and me and Ethari. We’re not broken. I just have to think about it… differently. About what you mean… to me. I’ll practice. I do know the law can get fucked, _that_ doesn’t get a say in what you and Ethari are to me.” Runaan was smiling widely at her so she probably wouldn’t have to put any money she didn’t have in the swear jar. “And this?” She gestured at the shards on the floor. “That’s not a _broken_ dragons’ egg, the dragon baby just hatched and flew away. Callum will like that, he likes the idea of flying, even though he’s scared of heights-” She stopped, realizing that this was the most she had ever told Runaan about Callum.

But Runaan was smiling, his hand stroking across her messy hair, and it was not correcting the messiness it was… love. “Rayla?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m very proud of you. And even when you are a _big_ handful, you are _my_ handful to handle and I would have it no other way.”

They didn’t draw away, getting used to the not-distance.

“Rayla?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you tell me about your… boyfriend?”

“ _Yeah_.”

* * *

It was a concession from Runaan, her bedroom door closing behind Callum, but what else was Christmas _for,_ really, but… gifts?

They sat opposite each other on her bed, the room dark like before, lit up by the snow outside, but different.

Rayla took the card he handed her, carefully. He had used his favorite colored pencils on the card, which was cheating a bit, maybe, but she couldn’t be the slightest bit cross, looking down at the anemones, sparkly white like snowflakes on the front.

He had never even seen a real one, because they didn’t grow here, but Callum could make a thought in his head so real on paper.

And the card wasn’t the gift, he explained, so didn’t count, the gift was folded up in an envelope inside. His gift was words.

Words for _her._ She stared, transfixed at her own name at the top of the page. It was a… poem? For _her?_

_Rayla,_

_You’re smart and fast and beautiful_

_I didn’t see it for ages, but it’s true_

_Of course it is, because it’s you_

_No less because it’s no longer new_

_In the beginning, my feelings were like a bud_

_Not a ‘butt’! I know that’s where your mind went_

_Because I know you_

_And I still like you_

_A lot_

_Not a butt_

_Not a bud, either_

_Not anymore_

_A flower_

_A forest anemone, little and normal and everywhere in the forest_

_Because it’s not weird at all to like you, or rare_

_It’s normal and everywhere_

_Everywhere in me, filling my heart and all the rest_

_It’s the best_

_You’re the best_

_Because you’re you_

So… real.

It felt different, looking at those words on the page, real and there to look at and touch.

She had been staring at it for a while, she realized, and looked up at Callum’s face, instead. He was nervous, the dummy. He really thought there was any chance she wouldn’t like _this?_

She smiled to reassure him, but took care to fold the paper back up and put it safely on her nightstand before she hugged him as tight as she could, for as long as she could get away with.

They didn’t have long though, with the door closed, because Runaan was still getting used to things, so she got the box out from under the bed to hand it to him.

“It’s a dragon egg,” Rayla explained haltingly, as he unwrapped it to look at the probably-pretty-confusing pile of shards. She was _hesitating_ , but… it was okay. He liked her. She set her jaw, defiantly. “It’s a dragon egg _after_ the wee dragon hatched. He’s a baby lightning-dragon, a really, really cute one.” She gestured at the snow-covered landscape outside her window, the fairy lights she had put up making the snowflakes around them shimmer in the air. “He’s somewhere around here, close.”

Callum smiled widely, running his fingers over the smooth blue glaze of the curved outer surface of the largest shard, before he turned to look at her, with such an amazing googly-eyed-wonder-face that it made her believe in lightning dragons at least a little bit because it felt like… electricity.

“Yeah!” he said, excited now. “Light blue and white, with a fuzzy mane that crackles with static. And he’s a really sweet dragon that’ll give you little zappy kisses if he likes you. And he likes _you._ A lot. You protected his egg until he was ready to hatch.”

She leant into his soft sweater. “You made the lightning storm that let him hatch. Mage.”

Callum took her hand and looked out into the falling snow outside her window.

There was rumbling in the distance. That whole lightning dragon story was because she had heard the lady on the weather report say there would be ‘thundersnow’ tonight, and it had sounded like something magical from a story, and lightning was Callum’s favorite kind of magic. It had all fit. Like their hands now, even with the leftover pinky.

Things didn’t need to be perfect, to fit.

A lightning strike lit up the slowly falling snowflakes and Callum’s smiling face and… inside him, too.

Maybe he _was_ magic.

Not _really_ a mage, of course. But like… a spark inside.

Pinging off hers.

Some bonus art! First, an edit of an edit, that I thought went with the vibe of this gooey thing:

Second, Ezran, Bait and Zym designs for this universe:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this mostly after midnight, because I'm with family, so it's not the most polished, but I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Didn't intend it to get heavy on me with Runaan, but I'm not very good at pure fluff :D Writing that terrible poetry was worryingly easy once I got started 😄
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone! I'm Danish, so I celebrate today, on the 24th

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the fluff/cringe middle school cocktail!
> 
> All feedback is welcome, even if it's negative :)


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